Agility training

**cheesiness warning**


[ I can't post pictures from my phone, so just imagine a picture of a pretty QQ ribbon here. ]

Webby rocks. I'm just so incredibly proud of this dog and his resilience and accomplishments. He is now over halfway to his championship in both points and QQs, after less than a year of very light Masters trialing. Which started after 13 months of retirement. So much for that idea!

He also placed 3rd of 20 in Standard (12 qualified). Considering the calibur of 16" dogs here, and that most of them are Shelties and a few Aussies...he just keeps speeding up. Picked up 47 points this weekend.

I'm just so happy for him. And so happy that *he* is happy. He was so very pleased to have a Solo Weekend, just him and I (had to scratch The Cheese due to pantieshood) and was a total ham all weekend.

/happiness

Go webster!!!!

Woohoo I have a drop in class! Yay! I also have possible private lessons and a workshop I'm auditing this weekend for usdaa games. Yay agility!

Great news!

Yay!!! I was going to be sad that we would miss out on Summer/Mia agility updates! Glad you figured out a solution.

I was going to be seriously depressed if we had to stop. They're doing so well. It'll be nice to get to work with the head trainer some more. She's been very impressed with Summer especially. Hopefully my old class can still keep going in 6 weeks but in he mean time we have a workable solution. That makes me happy.

I forgot to say congrats to shai and webby!

I get so happy when I see you post about how great Summer is doing at agility. She reminds me so much of Meg, and dogs like that are so darn wonderful, it's nice when the rest of the world recognizes it as well I'm glad you could find a way to keep them in agility while your class is on hiatus!

Congrats on such a great weekend with Webby! I would say more nice things, but somehow we never have Webby video to enjoy and admire.

I'm in a deep dark depression over Gusto having to be on rest for six weeks. We had 3 trials planned in that time - two already entered and paid for, one of which is my club's trial, and the only USDAA trial all year that is a nice easy "stay at home and wake up at a reasonable hour to arrive" location. All of which was supposed to lead up to him getting to go to regionals.

Meg's going to have a fit, because I swapped some of Gusto's entries out for her, and I'm going to ask her to run 4 classes in one day. She's been such a lunatic at trials lately, I think she'll have plenty of energy for it. I did keep my long-standing promise to her not to run her in gamblers. I'd have just scratched the whole trial, but I promised to carpool with a friend and I didn't want to back out on her.

But I want to be working and running my baby dog

YAY!!! Webster ROCKS! You really are such a good trainer, Shai. All of your dogs are just amazing.

That's great news! I don't know what I would do without a class for that long...

I'm so sorry about Gusto... But the good news is that you're doing everything right in his recovery so hopefully this will be the last of it.

Kimma's weaves have been getting MUCH better! I am just training entries, with a target at the end, and it's really upping her speed and accuracy. Hoping it continues and transfers over to sequences/courses! Coming at the middle of the month we have 4 straight weekends with a trial day (only Sundays) every weekend :yikes: They were all very close to home, so I just couldn't say no hahaha. Plus I don't think I will be doing any trialing over the summer, so I figured this would be our last hurrah for a few months.

I know I'm sorry . I had to leave for out of state immediately after the trial and was focused on that and forgot my camera. A friend *tried* to tape him on an iPad but forgot to slide the little button over and got a series of pictures instead...and is so non-techy I doubt I can even get those.

I'm plotting to drag hubby to a trial soon so he can video... Spouse abuse? Yep.

I'm really sorry about Gusto being off . Have been keeping you guys in my thoughts, and I hope his lameness is over for good. So scary.

Ugh training is going... not how I want. The last two weeks have been horrible because of the marathon/post-marathon pains. We are working hard on wraps and they are going horribly, Payton isn't wrapping tight at all and getting him to do more than two wraps, well, I might as well be asking him to go fix me dinner for all he seems compelled to do that. We're still working the 2o2o... it wasn't going very well with me not saying anything so I caved and started to say "touch" and now he is doing much better but I hate that I ended up using a cue word for it.

Wednesday we are hopefully off to Auggie's breeder's house and it will probably be a disaster and I will want to quit forever.

Now I have two potential new classes. One is slightly more advanced than the others so I am contemplating putting summer in the more advanced and Mia in the less advanced. That way I could work the crate between runs. It's hectic running two back to back. Mia has more issues to work out. Summer is very straightforward.

I feel you on the wrapping issue. Zuma DOES NOT wrap, I swear she doesn't know how to collect for the life of her. I've taught cik/cap from the ground up 3 separate times now, I've done jump grids, I've done one jump exercises and messed with reward placement.

I thought it was me and my training for the longest time, but holy cow can Zinga wrap BEAUTIFULLY. I just bumped her up to 16" (growth plates have been radiographically proven to be closed) and I am in love with her jumping style.

I just think some dogs structurally have a hard time with it.

Bought a dog walk this morning for the dog park.

So. Excited. To have a dog walk there.

Frag and I have been working on double boxes this week, and it is going better than I expected, but he needs to get back into shape again..

Welp, our class has been moved to being inside again... so we're at the old building which is pretty teeny inside. Payton has been there before but for obedience classes, never agility. I'm not sure how well this is going to go for him. I think he is at the point of needing a bigger space. It's just a bit difficult because he is so much further along than my sister and Henri who we are taking class with.
I might need to switch to a different class with P, but if I do, I'll have to give up my gym time... =< Because I'm pretty sure the other agility class I would do is on a Tuesday which is normally when I'm in a class at the gym... but then I could just bring Georgie on Wednesdays and not have to mess with juggling two dogs... I dunno. Urgh.

Officially going running a-frame with Zinga. I was doing stopped but I wasn't liking the creepy-steps she was giving me to get into the 2o2o position. So I threw some stride regulators on there to get the striding I wanted and liked it a little better. Then I said screw it and did a couple straight running and decided because she stays so nice and low and she was consistently hitting twice that we would give it a shot! I feel much better about her chances than Zuma's who would randomly have 1 hit or no hit at all, which was just down right scary.

We are going to use Rachel Sander's box method, just built the box yesterday! So excited!

Here's a quick video of her untrained a-frame, just using the stride regulators.
[YOUTUBE]AD_S5xCcnzA[/YOUTUBE]

We had SUCH a good night at agility and it's funny because we didn't practice this week at all. I've been away at conferences this week, so she stayed with my parents and I picked her up late last night, went to work, grabbed her at 5 and ran of to agility not expecting much at all.

We did one of the longest courses we've ever done, 18 obstacles. She was FAST which is usually hit/miss with her. All our contacts were good, our weaves were fast?! (Weaves are our nemesis). She was doing some distance. She was playing with a toy outside the ring, which is something she never does in public. Everything clicking. Once we started practicing weaves regularly in the backyard with my little stick in the grounds, something seemed to "click". We still have trouble with her on my right (She looks at me after each pole and sometimes misses one)

Just for fun, a video of her playing with weaves in the backyard.

[YOUTUBE]o4znU_pTiEQ&list[/YOUTUBE]

This week in agility class we had a lot of success, mostly with little Georgie. I only say mostly with little Georgie because I have not worked her as much as Payton and yet I was asking her for some pretty complicated wraps and turns and she was doing them all like a pro.

She is hysterical, I let her off leash and then was talking to our trainer a bit and I turn around and Georgie is hopping back and forth over a jump like "LOOK WHAT I CAN DO *jump* *jump* *jump* *jump* DIDJA SEE ME? *jump* *jump* *jump*" OMG.

I need to get weave poles and contacts on her. I've been bugging my mom about the weave poles and she said okay, we'll watch the 2x2 video this weekend and then she'll start working on the 2x2s with Georgie. I haven't even started contacts with her so I need to do that as well. I need my teeter to be built too.


Payton is doing really well although she was pushing me to start doing a lot of distance stuff with him. I haven't done a whole hell of a lot because a) I'm used to running Auggie who did better when I ran tandem, so I just plain ran tandem with him 99% of the time and b) I'm fast so I CAN run tandem with Payton. So trying to push him to do some sends and stuff he wasn't really ready for and he kept getting frustrated. If I stop moving he stops and barks at me. Loudly and repeatedly. OMG make it stop. I know this is something Trkman does a lot of so I've been working on it but admittedly it's just not been a priority. Really contacts are the priority with Payton so that's where we've been a lot lately.

Because as soon as he has his contacts where I want them we are going to start trialing. :yikes:

Drop in class on Monday with Frag finally; so excited!

Hopefully getting a ring rental in within the next two weeks.

Part one of our Stacy P-G seminar. It was such a blast!

I can post the rest if anyone is interested
![YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFoPT4kd5hI&sns=em[/YOUTUBE]